Someone recently asked why I write science fiction and fantasy. I believe the question went something like, For what? As if writing science fiction and fantasy was a degradation, a waste of time, or, at the very least, certainly not literature, definitely not art. So what was the point?

This question was not asked at Indigenous Comic Con, a 3-day event celebrating the Indigenous creators in popular culture. It was not asked by the comic book artists reimagining their cultural stories as superhero stories. It was not asked by the families crowding into the theater to watch Star Wars dubbed into the Navajo language. It certainly wasn’t asked by all the cosplayers dressed as their favorite science fiction and fantasy characters. Everyone there inherently understood why...